As I followed her, I knew where her direct route would take her. There was a ledge that hung over the river where the drop was fast and far to the cold waters below. It was a nice grassy ledge where some people liked to picnic. It was also where a few notables had taken that final leap. However lifeless she was, I couldn’t stand the idea of her committing suicide. I winced at the thought that you could call death after soullessness a suicide.
When I smelled the scavengers, I shook off the thoughts of the girl, the realization of the danger she was in bringing an edge to my fury. I saw a face, tinged green with a gaping mouth in an approximation to a smile, dimly through the fog. They should never have made it to this side of the river, not when the runes were laid so thick, so heavy on the other side, keeping the monsters and nightmares at bay, safely away from the people who lived in Sanders, unaware of the terrors that lurked across the river. Scavengers weren't the worst out there, in fact they were practically harmless against anyone who would fight back; they didn’t like losing their loosely attached body parts, but Dariana wouldn’t fight. I broke into a run, glad for the coat that camouflaged her. If she could stay hidden for a few minutes then she'd never know how close she'd come to danger.
One of them held a torch high above his head, waving it back and forth in his loosely jointed hands. There were others; scavengers never hunted alone, but their leader with the torch would be the only one I needed to convince. I didn't have time to try and reason with them—reason not being the strongest talent of scavengers—not when I had to find Dari, to save her from herself. My knife, the nondescript knife that I'd managed to keep track of for months, cut through the tendons of his knees before he saw me. It gave a staccato-like shriek before it tumbled over. I didn't even need to bring out my lighter, not when the torch lit his ragged shirt, setting him on fire. The others didn't run like I'd expected, instead turning on me with hisses and curses that were almost intelligible. One of them managed to wrap her hand, with the talon at the end of it, around my arm, slicing through my shirt before I grabbed her throat and burned, letting the fury consume me as she struggled, the fury driving my metabolism, building up the proteins until the cut was gone, and so was she, burned out from the inside. Most of them ran then, the few left were quick work to undo; a fury is good for some things.
When the scavengers were disassembled, I turned back to Dari. I searched the woods as the panic grew inside of me. The Scavengers shouldn't have been on this side of the river, and they hadn't acted right, slowing me down more than they should have with their unexpected tenacity. Maybe the scavengers were a diversion for something worse, something that wanted the girl as much as I did. I inhaled deeply smelling the wet woods but nothing human. I began to move faster towards the clearing hoping that she hadn’t changed direction. When I reached the end of the woods before the clearing, I let out a breath I hadn’t noticed I’d been holding.
She sat still, perched on the ledge to look up at the moon; it had broken through the mist enough to light her pale face. I slowed, knowing that even if she did fall, I would manage to pull her out of the river in time.
I heard an ear-shattering scream from the other side of the river. A certifiable nightmare wanted some company. I should get Dariana back home, but how could I get her attention without startling her? I could grab her and carry her home. She couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds, not that weight mattered when I was burning fury, but it seemed like it would make a bad first impression to pick her up and carry her off. The first impression seemed important, particularly considering the fact that there likely wouldn't be a second.
I stared at her, watching through the fog, and wondered if I’d been mistaken the first time. Did she really have no soul? I concentrated, and through the fog could make out the life that flickered from the plants and across the river the red brand of the eager nightmare. Everything else, all the life in the world disappeared when I saw her soul hovering around her. She had a soul, or at least she’d had it at one time, but it was outside of her now, a quivering iridescence of perfect purity and breathtaking beauty. I stepped forward without thinking and snapped a stick. I blinked her back into focus and saw her staring in my direction as if she could see me in the dark. I took a few steps forward until she could see my outline.
“What are you doing here?” I asked and realized how gruff I sounded. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. “It’s probably not the best idea for you to wander around in the woods at night.” She looked down and hunched deeper into the trench coat. “You look cold. Maybe I can make a fire for you.” A fire was a terrible idea but I couldn’t stand to watch her shiver. A fire would draw her uncles. It would draw all sorts of unwanted attention but in the meantime it would get her warm. It seemed like the least I could do.
She nodded, and I started moving, gathering sticks and putting them in a pile, all while trying hard not to stare at her. In a few minutes I was crouched over some pine needles blowing on a spark. When I looked up, her hair brushed my cheek she was so close. Why hadn’t I heard her? I looked down and realized I’d dropped my lighter. What was wrong with me? I couldn’t help but look up for a glimpse of the soul hovering above her. I forced myself to focus on the fire and finally got it lit. As I fed twigs to the flames, I noticed how heavy the silence felt between us.
“Do you come up here often?” I wasn’t sure if she could even answer questions.
“With my brother Devlin.” Her voice surprised me. It was a little like hearing a corpse talk, only corpses probably didn’t have such nice voices. It was husky but sweet. When I looked up at her she looked confused like her voice had surprised her as well.
“Good. It’s good to have family. At least that’s what they say. So do you go to high school here? It’s a beautiful building. It’s always nice to see old architecture so well preserved.” I paused for a moment then kept talking, mostly to distract myself from her soul. “I love woods. I love to walk around in the darkness never knowing what kind of dangerous thing I’m going to run into. I like fast cars too. Do you… never mind. I saw you at the funeral; that was quite a storm.” Even as I said those last words I realized what I should have already noticed. The wind had picked up, and the fog was thinning out. I heard lightning from the direction of Dariana’s house. Her mother had found out that she was gone. We probably had some time since she would not be easy to track, as I knew from experience. Of course, I had a bright fire that would draw them right to me.
I hesitated to douse the fire, caught in her gaze. Flickers of firelight reflected in her eyes as she stared at me, her hands over the flames. I realized with a start that she was going to burn herself and reached forward without thinking. When I caught her hands in mine to pull them away from the fire she gasped, and I had trouble breathing myself. Her soul slid between the skin of our hands, and I could taste it through that touch. She leaned over the fire never dropping her eyes from my face. I pulled my hand away and felt a bitter taste in my mouth when the sweetness of her soul disappeared. I moved quickly to put out the fire while she watched me with a desperate hunger that matched how I felt. Her soul was the most beautiful, sweet thing I’d ever seen and now tasted. It would take all the willpower I had to leave without it. I had built up a remarkable reservoir of willpower but it was vanishing the longer she looked at me, strands of her hair standing out dark against her pale skin, her lifeless eyes begging me.
“You’re warm.” It was half whisper as she made a helpless gesture towards me with her hand. I sat for a moment trying to think what could possibly make a situation like this right.
“I’m sorry about the fire but it looks like rain. I think I’d better take you home now.”
“Oh.” She sat there staring at me looking even more dejected until I reached a hand to help her up. She took it quickly, grasping it with both hands as I pulled her to her feet. I stood for a moment trying to ignore the taste of her soul while she clung to me, then turned and started through the woods. I tried to block out
the taste, the sight of the dispossessed soul hovering between us, but with every step her hands crept higher up my arm, until at some point she put her freezing cold hand on my back. I think I kept my manly calm, but I may have yelped. She had one arm wrapped around me, and the other hand clung to mine. Her head rested on my upper arm while we walked. She moved her legs, but mostly, I pulled her along. I felt a rush of anger at the stupidity of it all. Here I was dragging her home so she could be cold and die there slowly instead of out here quickly. I slowed then stopped and turned to her so I could look down at her face. She had more color to her cheeks. She almost smiled as she leaned towards me rising on her tiptoes.
What was she waiting for? I was no prince charming, and she was no princess. Her soul hovered between us, and I could hear it making a sound of indefinable sweetness. A soul had never sung to me before. In a few days it would fade, her life would snap, and her soul would disappear. Her eyelids drifted shut, and her cold breath touched the skin of my neck. I realized my hands were tightening on her arms, I felt the heat in me soak into her.
I felt her soul, sweet and tantalizing around the edges, but the real brightness and beauty was deeper. I didn’t make a decision to kiss her. One moment I was a breath away, and then her mouth was on mine, her breath became mine, and her soul was even sweeter than I’d imagined. I felt it wrap around me along with her arms, tangling fingers in my hair, and then something changed. The sweetness became too sweet, an ache that grew along with the coldness, as I tasted her. I realized that it wasn’t me who was doing the tasting. She was taking my warmth. I began to pull away but she held on and ripped all the heat, rage, and life out of me. I lost the feeling in my legs and slid down her, feeling the buttons of her coat scrape my cheek. I tried to hold onto something, but everything disintegrated as I slid into darkness.
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